Angus is Here! My birth story!

It's been, oh... 14 weeks since I last posted! The last little bit of my pregnancy was rough. I had a bunch of contractions and pain and such. Just getting back at me for my easier than normal first/second trimesters! At 34 weeks I went to the hospital because I was seeing stars and such. Wanted to make sure I wasn't developing pre-eclampsia. Ended up staying there for 5 hours on New Years Eve with contractions and had to have them stopped. Pretty crazy! After that I continued to have contractions, but not as regularly. I was put on light bed rest. 36 weeks comes around and I get off bed rest and was told to walk walk walk and start getting those contractions (you just can't win haha!) Feb. 3rd I went to the hospital because my contractions were 4-5 minutes apart for a few hours, then they got more intense and closer together. After being monitored for 3 hours with NO progress I was sent home. My blood pressure had been much higher than it had been my whole pregnancy starting at 37 weeks as well. I was contracting regularly then as well. Still no progress! After a long while of these regular contractions without any progress and the fact that my blood pressures had been elevated, at 38 weeks we scheduled an induction for Feb. 12th 2013. I was to go to the hospital at 7:30 to start Cytotec.

So fast forward to that day. I went to see my doctor at 2:30 that day. She checked my progress, none made of course, and then discussed what was going to be happening at my induction that night. She is the sweetest doctor. She told me I would do wonderful and that she was so proud of me and couldn't wait to meet the little man! About an hour after my check, I started getting more painful contractions. My parents and sister arrived at about 4pm and we went and got dinner at Memphis Championship BBQ. My contractions continued to be regular but increased in intensity. Finally 7pm rolls around and we headed to the hospital! When we got there I signed in and met my first nurse, Mindee. She was so professional and sweet! We did the normal. Got changed, answered a bunch of questions, basically signed away my life. Then I got checked again (no progress, go figure). Then they gave me the Cytotec. About an hour later with a lot of pain I decided to take some pain meds, boy they made me giggly and then made me fall asleep. When I woke up, I was in loads of pain! It was awful... So the nurse came in and checked me again! Finally I had progress, and enough to get an epidural, you can bet your butts I was ALL over that! After what seemed about an eternity (only about 15 min really) the anesthesiologist came in and gave it to me. Seriously, the most amazing thing ever. I fell asleep for about 2 hours and when I woke up I was feeling a lot of pressure, at first I thought it was from the catheter. Because of that they checked me again. I went from 4cm to 8cm dilated in 2 HOURS! Crazy! So I called my parents and told them to get there fast. They got there about 20 min. later. They all came in and checked on me and I was at 9cm at this point. My dad and sister went out to the lobby and my mom and Colin stayed with me. I started feeling like I needed to push right after they walked out the door, so I was checked again and lo and behold I was at 10cm!!! So they called the doctor to come and asked me to try not to push. Well, easier said than done... They decided to let me try, but I was too strong and if I had kept up at that rate the baby would have gotten there before the doctor so I had to keep from pushing again. That was seriously the HARDEST part. Working against what my body is naturally supposed to do is far from easy and it exhausted me. So by the time the doctor got there, I wasn't half as strong as I had been. But after an hour of pushing, I was holding my little boy in my arms! He is so absolutely perfect!